


That Morning After Feeling

by fredbassett



Series: Safe Shadows [5]
Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 09:09:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20405230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: Lester really should know better than to drink whisky at the same rate as his boyfriend.





	That Morning After Feeling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celeste9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/gifts).

Lester turned over in bed and buried his face in the pillow. At some point in the night a sadistic midget wielding a jackhammer appeared to have taken up residence in his skull. Probably at about the same time as something small and furry had crawled into his mouth and expired messily.

He knew perfectly well that what he needed was some painkillers washed down with several glasses of water, but the thought of getting up was not appealing. In fact, the thought of even continuing to live was not a prospect that filled him with any joy. He really should have known better than to get involved in something that had come dangerously close to being a whisky-drinking contest. To be precise, a whisky-drinking contest with one D. Quinn, Esq., who would no doubt already be as fresh as the proverbial daisy, regardless of having consumed enough liquor to stop a charging mammoth in its tracks.

The noise of curtains being unceremoniously dragged back from the windows rattled around in his head like a ball-bearing in a biscuit tin, and the sunlight that streamed into the bedroom made the midget in his head dance with joy and resume the attempt to dig its way out through his cranium.

“I would very much appreciate being left alone to die in peace, Quinn,” Lester mumbled, his face firmly pressed into the pillow in the hope of asphyxiating himself.

“What you need is a mug of tea and a bacon butty.” As expected, Danny did indeed sound infuriatingly cheerful.

“What I need is to be left alone to die in peace,” Lester countered, as his stomach churned unpleasantly at the mere thought of food.

“We’ll start with the painkillers, shall we?”

Even the sound of two tablets being popped out of a blister pack was insufferably loud, causing Lester to pull the pillow over his head and feign death. A moment later the duvet was unceremoniously stripped off him and thrown onto the floor. Lester whimpered miserably and held onto the pillow, not caring that his naked body was now on display. After all, Danny wasn’t exactly a stranger to the sight of him in a state of undress.

A light swat on his arse told him that sympathy was unlikely to be forthcoming. Lester rolled over onto his back and opened his eyes. The huge grin on Danny’s face confirmed his worst fears. His lover appeared to have emerged largely unscathed from their excesses of the night before. Danny was wearing a threadbare green bathrobe that looked almost as battered as Lester felt. His hair stood up in damp spikes and Lester caught the smell of pine shower gel.

“Painkillers first, shower second, tea and bacon butty third,” Danny said, holding out the tablets and a glass of water.

Lester grimaced, but managed to sit up and gulp down the tablets. The rest of the water went some way to washing out the dead gerbil in his mouth, but Lester knew he desperately needed to clean his teeth.

With an effort, he struggled upright and padded into the bathroom. Brushing his teeth helped enormously, as did copious quantities of mouthwash. Feeling marginally less like throwing up, Lester stepped into the shower and let the warm water start to turn him back into something that might eventually begin to resemble a human being, rather than a third-rate necromancer’s unsuccessful attempt to re-animate a long-dead corpse.

When he’d finished, Lester rubbed a towel over his hair, decided against shaving, and then grabbed his own dressing gown and wandered into the kitchen. Much to his surprise, his stomach didn’t immediately rebel against the smell of frying bacon, and when two bacon rolls were put on the table in front of him along with a large mug of tea, Lester set about demolishing them at speed, much to Danny’s amusement.

In fact, now Lester came to think of it, there was an even greater than usual undercurrent of amusement in every look that Danny was giving him that morning. Lester was starting to come to the unwelcome conclusion that he must have done or said something wholly regrettable whilst under the influence of alcohol the previous night. The only question was whether he should make enquiries into exactly what was so amusing, or simply pretend that he hadn’t noticed.

“You don’t remember, do you?” Danny said, grinning widely, making Lester wonder – not for the first time – if the man practised some form of Dark Arts. Maybe the dead thing in Lester’s mouth that morning had been a ritual sacrifice…

“I remember you deciding that a whisky-tasting session was a good way to spend a Friday evening…” he replied. A former secretary had once acidly told him that he could win Olympic gold in changing the subject but Lester preferred to think of it more along the lines of having turned deflection into an art form.

“That must be a comfort. Feeling that crap on just orange juice would be a bit worrying.”

Lester finished his tea and pushed his mug towards Danny who obliged him by pouring a refill from the pot. Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound… “So what did I say or do last night that has managed to engender this much amusement? Did I perhaps do something wholly out of character and fail to object when you farted in bed?”

Danny’s grin widened even further until he bore a very distinct resemblance to a cartoon of the Cheshire cat in a book he’d bought his daughter for Christmas. “You definitely don’t remember, do you, James?”

Lester sighed theatrically. “No, I definitely don’t remember, but from the look of profound amusement on your face, I imagine my happy ignorance is soon to be shattered. And in any event, whatever it is I said or did, I’m blaming the whisky.”

The look of uncertainty that crossed Danny’s face like a shadow clouding the sun came as something of a surprise to Lester. Lack of confidence wasn’t normally a trait he associated with Danny.

Danny turned away. “I’m just taking the piss, James, you know me.” He busied himself putting more bacon in the pan and slicing another couple of rolls.

Lester clearly wasn’t the only one who could win medals for changing the subject. He sipped the tea and cast his mind back in an attempt to penetrate the alcoholic haze of the previous evening.

They’d arrived back at his flat at about 7.30pm. A homemade lasagne from the freezer accompanied by salad and garlic bread had provided a very pleasant meal. A bottle of Campo Viego 2010 Rioja had vanished at speed and after that Danny had decided, for reasons best known to himself, to work his way through Lester’s extensive collection of malt whisky. Lester, not wanting to be outdone, had followed suit. In hindsight, it hadn’t been one of his most sensible moves.

They’d matched each other glass for glass. At around 11pm, Danny had been sprawled on the settee, with his head resting in Lester’s lap. They hadn’t spoken for a while and Lester had been idly carding his fingers through Danny’s hair. He remembered the conversation turning to the subject of past relationships and for a while they’d swapped confidences, including the fact that Lester’s first crush had been on an English teacher – male – at school when he was 14. In return, Danny told the story of when he had once had a can of beans thrown at him for serenading a girl called Hannah Harding at midnight outside the window of a bed and breakfast in Weston-super-Mare. In his defence, he had only been 15 at the time, but having heard his lover singing in the shower, Lester had found himself in sympathy with the girl’s father.

Nothing in any of that seemed to be a worthy cause for his lover’s sudden attack of reticence… then the floodgates of Lester’s memory started to open…

He stood up and was relieved to discover that the painkillers had apparently succeeded in evicting the jackhammer-wielding midget from his skull. Danny was still busily cooking bacon, but he didn’t object when Lester stepped up behind him and slipped his arms around Danny’s waist, pulling him close. He went up on his toes and pressed a kiss to the back of his lover’s neck.

“I meant what I said, Danny, you do realise that, don’t you?”

Danny turned around in Lester’s arms and looked down at him. A slight smile quirked his lips. “Are you sure it wasn’t the drink talking?”

“Well, I could blame the whisky, but that would be a lie.”

“And government hatchet men never lie?”

Lester tugged Danny’s head down and kissed him lightly on the lips. “Government hatchet men never lie to their lovers.”

“Lovers plural?”

“Lover singular,” Lester said firmly.

It was a long time since he’d told anyone he loved them, and it had taken an awful lot of whisky to float the admission out of him the previous night, but if they both worked at it, they might actually manage to say the words whilst sober.

Lester knew that he certainly intended to try.

Starting just after his next bacon roll and mug of tea.


End file.
